Tom Hicks has gone from one of the best owners in the NHL, one who
was able to inexplicably make hockey a viable sport in North Texas, to
one that many wish would just go away as quickly and as quietly as
possible. That’s not going to happen, it seems.

Hicks purchased
the Dallas Stars and the Texas Rangers in the 1990’s and while he
generally gets most of the credit for the Stars’ success over the years.
Yet seeing how the Rangers have stumbled in his tenure and how the
Stars have struggled once Bob Gainey left, it’s possible that the Stars
being so good was due more to great management than anything Hicks did
as an owner.

He’s always been a bit of a standoffish owner, never
being one to be as involved as some of the other local owners in Dallas.
That’s always been fine with Stars fans, as a Stanley Cup win tends to
overshadow some of the warning signs that have started to show.

It
was Hicks’ purchase of the Liverpool football club that really put
things in high water. Before then, the Rangers may not have had the most
success but they were still able to spend an exhorbitant amount of
money. That didn’t work, yet now the team is incapable of spending any
money whatsoever. His baseball team has been under the control of the
MLB for nearly a year and the Dallas Stars have been handcuffed with a
budget well under the salary cap. It’s caused some serious anxiousness
for fans of both teams as they feel the Stars and Rangers are just one
or two big acquisitions away from taking the next step.

As Tom
Hicks announces that he is also looking to sell his Liverpool team,
he tells the Times Online that he’s ready to give up being an owner
of sports franchises:

“I can still be a fan. But I’ve paid a terrible price. I’m 64 years
old. I don’t want that any more. Jerry Jones [the Dallas Cowboys owner]
is a good friend of mine, but his life and his family’s life is the
Dallas Cowboys. Mark Cuban, the Dallas Mavericks are his life. This
isn’t my life.”

I’m sure the Dallas Stars fans out there are deeply sorry for the
terrible price Hicks has paid, as his greed at owning three sports teams
put all three deep into a world of hurt. That he’s also making the sale
of the Rangers tough to complete, and the asking price he’s listed for
Liverpool ($1.2 billion) there’s no doubt that he cares only about his
bottom line and not the teams he’s owned for so long.

Hicks has done a heck of a job alienating the fans of the teams he owns over the past few years, and even the most die hard of Stars fans that are still grateful of the wins he brought the team are admitting that it’s time for him to go. After building up hockey to incredible levels in Dallas, he now claims that the sport is far from a viable sport in North Texas unless the NHL drastically lowers the salary cap. Over the past few seasons, the Stars fans have seen their team fail to to make any big moves to improve the team even though the cap room was there, and for a team that has consistently been one of the top grossing franchises in the NHL that’s a hard pill to swallow.

Now we hear that he’s not even that interested in owning sports teams.

Good thing sports isn’t your life Tom, or you might end up owning
three sports teams.